


The road not taken looks real good now

by wildlingoftarth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:41:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28156242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildlingoftarth/pseuds/wildlingoftarth
Summary: Jaime was pacing the small balcony now, his hands mussing up the beautiful golden hair she’d run her fingers through so many times. “I’ll go wherever you go. I’ll go to fucking Skagos if that's what you want. Please, Brienne.” His voice wavered with desperation. “Don’t let this be it.”
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 36
Kudos: 172
Collections: JB Festive Festival Exchange Stocking Stuffers 2020





	The road not taken looks real good now

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Corina (CorinaLannister)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorinaLannister/gifts), [golden_sword](https://archiveofourown.org/users/golden_sword/gifts).



> Angst? In _this_ economy??
> 
> I know, and I agree. Blame CorinaLannister and golden_sword, who both prompted it, as well as Taylor Swift, whose new album I’ve been listening to on repeat lately. There is a happy ending here though, don’t fret!
> 
> Jaime is four years older than Brienne (25 and 21, respectively) in this fic, and Brienne and Tyrion are the same age.
> 
> Title and inspiration from [‘tis the damn season.](https://open.spotify.com/track/7dW84mWkdWE5a6lFWxJCBG)
> 
> Unbeta’d, because I like to live dangerously.

“Were you planning on avoiding me all night?”

His voice behind her made her stomach clench, her shoulders visibly twitching up toward her ears. She took a deep breath and tried to relax her body as she heard him approach, his warmth sinking through her heavy sweatshirt. The winter had been unseasonably cold in King’s Landing, and Brienne stood outside on one of the many balconies of the Lannister estate, watching her breath crystallize into fog before dissolving against the inky-black sky. The party inside was getting progressively louder, her high school friends getting progressively drunker and rowdier like they always did when they all came home for the holidays or summer breaks. 

“I’m not avoiding you,” she lied, purposely not looking at him for fear of being caught out. Not that he would believe her anyway.

Jaime came to stand beside her, looking out over the bay and the twinkling lights of the city from his house’s perch atop a high hill. He rested his forearms on the balustrade, his elbow almost close enough to press against hers. “You spent 15 minutes talking to _Clegane_ to avoid talking to me. All that guy does is grunt.”

Brienne tried to smile, but her face wouldn’t cooperate. She swallowed, the fingers of her folded hands tightening almost painfully over each other. 

"Do you remember when we met?" Jaime asked, his words puffing out in white clouds. 

Brienne did smile then, in spite of herself. "Yeah. Right here."

"During a party just like this. The big difference being you're all actually legal to drink now."

"And you're still skulking around on balconies surprising innocent young women just trying to get some air."

"You're definitely not innocent anymore." The low timbre of his voice sent a coil of heat snaking through Brienne’s body, and she mentally berated herself for being so responsive to him. As much as she wanted to drag him inside and fuck him senseless like she'd done so many times during parties like this, she couldn't allow herself to. Not when she was about to break both their hearts. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. 

“My dad is moving back to Tarth. Before I graduate.”

Jaime turned to her then, his gaze burning into the side of her face. 

“Oh.” She wasn’t sure what she’d expected him to say when she told him, but it wasn’t _oh_.

“So you won’t be back this summer,” he said after a pause, his voice quiet against the city noise from below.

She gave a minuscule shake of her head. “No.” 

After what felt like an eternity of silence, Jaime huffed out a sharp, humorless laugh. “Well, that’s a tidy solution to your problem.”

She turned to look at him, finally, her brows knitted together.

“What do you mean?”

Jaime’s jaw tightened. “Four years, Brienne. Four years I've been waiting for you to realize I can be more than just someone you fuck when you come home from college."

"Jaime…"

He held up a hand. "I need to say this. You wanted your space, and your freedom, and I gave it to you. I accepted your excuses about being too busy at school and us being in ‘two different places in our lives’ and I resisted the urge to call or text you whenever I thought about you, which was a hundred times a day. I told myself I was okay with being your fuck buddy because any time with you was better than none. And now your dad is moving back to Tarth and you won’t have any reason to come back to King’s Landing, even though one is standing right in front of you.”

His words made Brienne’s chest ache, tears pricking at the backs of her eyes. “Jaime. You know it wouldn’t work between us.” Her protest sounded weak, even to her ears.

“You’ve never even given us a chance,” he snapped, the exasperation in his voice barely suppressed. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then opened them and looked back at her, his voice more even now. “I know I don’t have any claim to you. But you can’t say we’re in two different places in our lives anymore. You're graduating college, I'm graduating law school. We’ll both need jobs.”

“But your dad’s company…” 

“Fuck my dad’s company.” Jaime was pacing the small balcony now, his hands mussing up the beautiful golden hair she’d run her fingers through so many times. “I’ll go wherever you go. I’ll go to fucking Skagos if that's what you want. Please, Brienne.” His voice wavered with desperation. “Don’t let this be it.” 

The tears she felt pricking at her eyes earlier were falling now, icy cold on her flushed cheeks. A sob escaped her, full of the anguish she’d been forcing down for months.

Jaime took one big step toward her and wrapped his arms solidly around her, pulling her into his chest. She clutched at his shirt and let the tears come, all the emotions she’d suppressed about Jaime flooding to the surface. 

She'd filled her schedule at school with studying and soccer and friends and sorority events to keep her from thinking of Jaime. It worked most of the time, except when it didn't, when she’d lay in bed at night and miss him and want him so intensely it felt like there was a jagged hole punched into her chest. 

But they could never really be together - that was what she told herself every time she politely refused when he asked her on an actual date or to go out in public together or to do anything that wasn't fucking. Deep down she knew it was self-preservation, to prevent herself from being shattered when he inevitably found someone else, someone older and beautiful and sophisticated who he could take to his father's dinner parties and who wouldn't look ridiculous with some delicate diamond ring on her finger. 

But he hadn't found anyone else, and neither had she, and now he was holding her while she cried and stroking her hair and whispering reassuring nothings into her ear. He held her until her tears slowed and until her breathing evened out, until she was composed enough to wipe her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt and look up at him. He was so beautiful in the low, silvery light of the moon that her breath caught in her chest. 

Jaime gently rested his thumb under Brienne’s chin. “Are you going to tell me what you’re so afraid of now?”

A dozen excuses and white lies came to mind, but Jaime had been brave tonight, and she owed it to him to do the same. “I’m afraid I’m going to get so attached to you that when you finally realize I’m not good enough for you, it’ll destroy me.”

“Brienne. I’m the one who should be worried about that. You are the best person I’ve ever known. And it destroyed me every time you went back to school and didn’t call, but I survived.”

She laid her head on his shoulder again. _I'm sorry_ , the refrain repeated in her head. _I'm sorry_.

"It's okay," he whispered in response to the apology she didn't realize she'd said out loud, his hands running up and down her back. "It's okay."

Brienne sniffled and pushed away from him slightly. "Can we go inside? It's freezing out here." 

He chuckled and steered them back inside, still holding her to him, and walked them to his bedroom, the familiar smell of his sheets and feel of his mattress underneath her causing a visceral reaction in her body. Jaime laid her down on his bed and settled next to her, their bodies pressed together from head to toe. 

They just laid like that for a long while, feeling each other's hearts beating, listening to the steady rhythms of each other's breaths. 

She’d never allowed herself to admit it before, but _this_ was who she wanted. _This_ was where she wanted to spend the rest of her life - in Jaime’s arms. 

Brienne’s body was trembling now, with need, with relief, with realization. She lifted her head and brought her lips to Jaime's, hoping everything she felt for him that she couldn’t say yet was conveyed in her kiss. Jaime’s mouth opened to her, the spark of their meeting tongues just as powerful as it had been during their first kiss on that balcony four years ago. 

Their bodies came together effortlessly, their strength perfectly matched, their knowledge of how to please each other instinctual. Their chemistry had been almost overwhelming from the start, and she had been careful to not let it muddy up the other feelings she had for Jaime, the ones she kept so carefully hidden away. But now, lying beside him, sweaty and sated and tangled together so thoroughly she wasn’t sure where she ended and he began, those feelings bubbled to the surface.

“ _I love you_ ,” she whispered into his chest. 

Jaime sucked in a breath and tilted her face toward his. His eyes held no trace of deception, no subterfuge. “I love you. I’ve loved you for so long.”

Brienne smiled and kissed him again, another tear escaping from the corner of her eye, this one filled with joy and promise and none of the heartache she’d expected from this night.

“We can make this work, you know?” he said as his fingers stroked her neck and shoulder. “Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it. We just have to make it through these last four months of school, and then we can go wherever we want. I don’t care, as long as it’s with you.”

Brienne nodded. “Okay,” she said quietly. 

“Okay?” he asked, his smile and eyes so bright they made her heart swell in her chest.

“Yes,” she said, more sure than she’d ever been about anything. “I want to make this work too. I want to be with you.”

Jaime hugged her hard one more time and kissed her on the forehead. “Your friends are probably wondering where you disappeared to. Should we get back out there?”

Brienne laughed. “Probably. But together, this time.”

“Together.”

She liked the sound of that.


End file.
